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Stars prepare for last major of golf season

Weather has hampered players' practice rounds

Associated Press

Posted:
08/08/2012 10:54:28 PM MDT

Updated:
08/08/2012 10:54:29 PM MDT

KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. -- The final major of the year, and everyone was cramming for their last big exam.

Ernie Els and Adam Scott walked up to the 18th green at Kiawah Island on Wednesday evening about the time most people in the low country would be going out for a dinner of shrimp and grits. Behind them on the Ocean Course was Ian Poulter, facing the prospect of missing out on the Ryder Cup team, and Graeme McDowell, in Sunday contention at the last two majors and hopeful the outcome at the PGA Championship will be different.

The major that bills itself as "Glory's Last Shot" felt more like a pop quiz.

Rain has pounded Kiawah Island throughout the week, and it got so bad Wednesday that play was suspended because of storms before anyone teed off. It has led to limited practice time on the one course where players really need it.

This is the first time South Carolina has hosted a major championship. Kiawah Island had the Ryder Cup in 1991, so long ago that Jose Maria Olazabal is the only player at the PGA Championship who played in those matches. And he's only in the field as the European captain.

McDowell, Scott and Tiger Woods were among those who came to Kiawah last week for a look at the Pete Dye design, though all of them remarked that 2 inches of rain had fallen the night before and it was soft. Not much has changed a week later.

"The last couple of days have been very difficult from a preparation standpoint," McDowell said. "The golf course has taken a lot of rain.

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It seems to drain extremely well, though. But there's no doubt this golf course is a long course, and this little bit of rain is going to make it play longer and certainly is changing the dynamic of it as we speak."

Then, he headed out for an emergency nine, one last chance to see the stretch of holes that could determine the winner.

"It's going to be busy this afternoon," he said. "Guys are scrambling around to get their preparation done. Thankfully, I feel like I have done enough so far."

At most majors, practice rounds are busy Monday and Tuesday, with mostly work on the practice range on the eve of the championship and perhaps nine holes in the morning.

"It was a little strange to prepare -- not your typical week leading up to a major," Stewart Cink. "But it was fine. We could get enough work in. Everybody is in the same boat, so it will be all right."

What to expect from Kiawah?

"Without meaning to state the blind obvious," Clarke said, "it all depends how strong the wind blows."

The gusts reached 20 mph Tuesday morning before the storms arrived, and when the course was open for a play again, what little wind there was came from the opposition direction. It was stifling Wednesday afternoon, with not much of a breeze.

Woods is trying to avoid going a fourth consecutive year without a major. He has been close in the last two, at least for a while. He was co-leader through 36 holes at Olympic Club, then tumbled out of the top 20 on the weekend. He was in the penultimate group at the British Open, only for his hopes to die while squatting on the precipice of a pot bunker on his way to a triple bogey on the sixth hole.

He says he is a fan of Pete Dye courses, though Whistling Straits was never terribly kind to him.

"Pete will give you a couple easy holes, and then he'll just hammer you with a few hard ones," Woods said. "Then he'll give you a break, and it's kind of the ebb and flow of most of Pete's designs. ... This is a golf course where it's going to test our short games a lot. The guy who can chip and putt really well this week is going to have a great chance."

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